The Alfredo Bensaúde museum is located on the 3rd floor of the mines pavilion. It is a university museum primarily dedicated to Portuguese mineralogy, crystallography and petrology. Its collections comprise also relevant geologic materials from the Portuguese former colonies. The collections of this museum also comprise scientific instruments and educational materials (books, maps and historical photos), as well as personal scientific items that belonged to various teachers of the mines department, namely Alfredo Bensaúde, Amílcar Mário de Jesus and Luís Aires-Barros. The museum is located on the IST (Alameda campus), and was inaugurated in 1936, in accordance with Duarte Pacheco´s plans. Pardal Monteiro, a celebrated architect from the first half of the 20th century, was responsible for the project. Its functionalist design, preserved to the present day, is an example of the Estado Novo architecture, and provides added value to the collections on display. The roots of the IST geosciences museums stem back to the Lisbon Industrial Institute (IIL), who was renamed in 1869 as Lisbon Institute of Industry and Commerce (IICL). Both these institutes operated from 1859 to 1911 in the Madeira Palace building, located at Rua da Boavista, and no longer existent. This same building housed the IST from 1911 to 1936, when the Alameda campus was inaugurated. The present day museum facilities were designed by Pardal Monteiro, a celebrated architect from the first half of the 20th century, and were inaugurated in 1936. The space and equipments of exhibition preserve their original design and, as such, they constitute a relevant architectural reference.
The Geological Museum was constituted around 1859, starting from the samples collected during the works performed by the Geological Commissions, and later by the Geological Services of Portugal and the Geological and Mining Institute. The c ...
The National Natural History Museum (MNHN) is an organisation that pertains to the University of Lisbon, which has the functions of preserving heritage, researching and disseminating knowledge through the use of the methods and communicatio ...
